


again, and again

by siren_songs



Series: of Love and Seamonsters [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (although be warned the happy ending happens in the next fic of the series), Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Constipation, Emotionally Repressed, Geralt is kind of an asshole in this, M/M, POV Jaskier | Dandelion, Porn With Plot, Strangers to Lovers, basically lol, both of them top and both of them bottom in this, but in the maybe-sequel u would understand, but u dont see his viewpoint so u dont see WHY, ok im done abusing the tags pls just read this, please give me love for this i worked so hard, stop writing jaskier as some tiny smol bean! he can take care of himself!, to kind-of friends (according to dandelion)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:55:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22332241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siren_songs/pseuds/siren_songs
Summary: Jaskier has loved Geralt for years, though they fell into bed together first. It's only a shame that Geralt doesn't feel the same way.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: of Love and Seamonsters [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1607506
Comments: 81
Kudos: 846
Collections: The Witcher Alternate Universes





	again, and again

**Author's Note:**

> my first witcher fic guys, please be nice. completely unbetaed and i haven't proofread it bc im sick of looking at it after like a month and i just wanted to get it out!

The fire crackles and the stars blanket the sky overhead, and Jaskier is sprawled on a bedroll thrown down as close to the fire as he can get it without it catching fire. It is uncomfortable and filthy and the food is charred from the fire, and frankly the whole business is not nearly as romantic as the songs make it to be.

“So you just—sleep on the ground whenever there are no inns around?” he tries to prompt the witcher into talking. Geralt ignores him soundly.

“Hey.” Jaskier scrabbles some dirt from the ground and tosses it half-heartedly at the witcher, who shoots him a filthy look, and there is a long, long pause during which Jaskier resigned himself to a night spent in stilted silence, before Geralt speaks up.

“I sleep on the ground even when there are inns around,” he says, and Jaskier winces. “It’s only really for Roach that I go into taverns at all.”

The chestnut mare nickers from where she is grazing, a few yards from them. Her saddle has been removed and is laying pommel-down against a sturdy tree beside their camp, and her bridle has been replaced with a rope halter that is tied to a branch protruding from the aforementioned tree. A rug has been slung over her back to keep off the chill and she is grazing quietly. She is well used to this arrangement, it seems.

“I think it’s all rather exciting,” Jaskier prompts, hoping to get some rousing tales of adventure and death and glory. Geralt just looks at him, and it’s a peculiarly emotionless look: emotionless in that it is perfectly blank and yet perfectly expressive of Geralt’s derision and apathy toward the subject.

“Hmm. _Exciting_. That’s one word for it,” Geralt grunts and mutters, more to himself than to Jaskier, but he appreciates the comment all the same. Always carrying the conversation will quickly become exhausting, he thinks.

“Well, I suppose the women must be all over you, whenever you do find a town.” Jaskier is not even particularly talking to his surly companion at this point; more considering the romantic overtures of such a lifestyle and how he might weave a little bit of softness into the steel wall that Geralt is proving to be, but the witcher responds regardless.

“Oh, yes, the women. You find a brothel willing to take your coin and a woman willing to fuck a mutant, and then when all’s said and done they lay there and _talk_ , as if they don’t know you just want to roll over and sleep.”

Well, that was something. “I suppose it must be lonely, being a whore. Always listening to men talking about themselves. Maybe they took your broody silences as an invitation to fill it themselves,” Jaskier theorises, straightening his shoulders a little as a few snatches of lyrics come to him, if only he could weave them—a song about a whore, perhaps, who… had been a princess, but her kingdom was sacked and she ran and changed her name, and—

“Hmm.” The grunt cuts off his reverie, and Jaskier would be almost annoyed at the abrupt interruption of his artistic genius had he not been so focused on getting the witcher to open up, just a little.

“I always like to talk a bit after sex. Makes me and them feel less like we’ve used each other, you know? And you learn the most interesting things after someone’s completely fucked out.”

“That why the women never fucking shut up about the scars?” Geralt says then, and he poses it as a question, but he isn’t really asking—he has a funny sort of half-smile twisting his mouth, and his eyes are far away as he looks into the flames. They cast shadows across his face.

“Some might find that attractive,” Jaskier grins, and it is only when the witcher looks up and meets his eyes with a sort of hungry gaze that he realises—fuck, this might constitute as _flirting_.

And then—yep, definitely flirting, as Geralt’s gaze drops to his mouth and Jaskier feels a sharp stab of arousal at the heat he sees there.

Fuck.

"Some?” Geralt asks, and his voice is low and growly—and yes, it was always low and growly, but there’s a rasping and incredibly arousing quality to it now that is hard to define but incredibly difficult to miss, and Jaskier’s breath hitches.

“Erm—well—” he fumbles, and he _never_ fumbles, fuck what is he doing, think, _think—_ “scars make someone look—so strong, and sort of… dangerous—”

“And you like danger, do you?” Geralt cuts him off before he embarrasses himself further, except the witcher is now looking very dangerous himself, and Jaskier sits up on the bedroll, unsure whether he wants to flee or to throw himself at the other man, when the choice is taken from him.

Geralt reaches out, quick as a viper, and snatches the corner of his bedroll, pulling Jaskier sharply towards him along with it, and Jaskier lets out a _very_ undignified yelp that is cut off when Geralt pounces, slotting their lips together hungrily in a kiss that begins clumsily, and undignified, and swiftly evolves into a hot and heady mix of sliding tongues and just a little bit too much teeth.

They draw apart long moments later—though it could have been hours, or days—and Jaskier gasps in huge lungfuls of air while Geralt noses down his jaw, his neck, to where it meets his shoulder—then _bites down_ , hard.

Jaskier yelps, and Geralt huffs what might have been a _laugh_ , before licking over the bruising skin in apology. He pushes at Jaskier until he is laying fully on his back, then swings his leg over so that he is straddling Jaskier’s thighs, and shoves a hand unceremoniously up his shirt.

And, God, Jaskier is _so fucking hard_.

He is about to complain of the rough treatment when Geralt’s clever fingers find one of his nipples and takes it, rolling and pinching it between them, and the words are dust before the strangled moan that finds its way out of his mouth instead.

“Do you think I could make you come from this?” Geralt’s sultry tone is rough as gravel in his ear, and the very thought makes his dick twitch hard enough that he thinks it just might be possible. “Have you come in your underclothes for me, writhing on the ground—I haven’t even touched your cock yet, and you’re already gagging for it, aren’t you?”

The harsh tone of it and the vivid imagery goes straight to his cock, drives Jaskier mad. He arches his chest further into Geralt’s clever fingers and tries to use his own hands to reach down and unlace his straining breeches, but Geralt’s free hand snaps up and grabs Jaskier’s wrists, preventing him from doing so, and, god, he _whines_ , then turns his face away, embarrassed.

Geralt forces Jaskier’s hands above his head then leans in for another kiss, a little smug smirk on his lips that he both hates and finds himself unfairly attracted to.

This whole business can’t have been more than ten minutes, and Jaskier is _dangerously_ close to finishing already.

Then Geralt withdraws his hand from Jaskier’s shirt, reaches down, and palms his cock through his breeches, and Jaskier finds he doesn’t fucking care. He bucks up shamelessly into the stimulation, and he’s close—

So fucking close—

And then the stimulation abruptly stops and Jaskier whines, like a bitch in heat, tossing his head demandingly.

Geralt lets go of his wrists to grab his hips and turn him roughly over. Yanks his breeches down, hard; palms his ass, hard; leaves him alone entirely for a moment before returning with a small vial of oil in his hand.

And then one slicked hand is grasping his cock, squeezing harder and pumping slower than whores usually do, thank Jaskier usually does, and he writhes with the stimulation, pressing back and back until his back hits Geralt’s chest, and it’s _so fucking good_ —

And the Geralt decides that apparently that is enough contact and he is shoved unceremoniously into the floor again, his face pressed into the sheets—not hard, but with enough force that Jaskier can’t wriggle out of the hold, all he can do is lay there and _take it—_

He comes, hard, at the thought, the thought of Geralt pinning him down and taking whatever he wants and all Jaskier can do is mewl and cry for it, and he splatters over himself and Geralt’s hand and the bedroll, too. He stays where he is, panting, even when the hand at his neck releases him.

Then he hears a grunt from behind him, and _fuck that_ —he twists around and reaches for the witcher. Geralt looks at him through heavy-lidded, lust-filled eyes, and Jaskier grabs his cock, jerks it; Geralt’s hands fall to the ground to brace himself, and he lets out a low moan.

“ _Fuck_.”

“Like that, hm?” Jaskier murmurs, filling the silence, and the witcher’s head lolls to the side, his mouth parting. It looks wet and slick and Jaskier wants to lean forward and claim it.

So he does.

There is a small _hmph_ of surprise as Jaskier licks into his mouth, and flicks his thumb over the head of Geralt’s dick. _That_ seems to work, so he does it again, and again, and then collects the pre-come and strokes downwards.

He finds a rhythm as he kisses Geralt, and it’s hot and sweat and slick and when Geralt comes it is like looking at the sun.

Jaskier has, somehow, climbed into Geralt’s lap; he disentangles himself as gracefully as he can manage and is mildly surprised when the witcher flops back onto the ground rather than getting up. His chest is heaving and his eyes are closed; it is a somewhat startling reminder that, though he is a witcher, he was, once, human.

Jaskier looks at him, tracing the details of the witcher’s face and committing them to memory—he wants to remember this exact moment: the slackening of the warrior’s face; the way the fire highlights his features and casts others into shadow; the starlight overhead and the backdrop of the forest and the flowers that sprout through the undergrowth around them.

Perhaps he might write a song about this. Not something he would share with others—something just for himself.

Then Geralt grunts, heaves himself up, and pulls his breeches on, before crossing to his own bedroll.

No talking, then.

Jaskier stays where he is for a moment longer, feeling the sweat dry on his skin and the cool air turn him clammy, before he sighs and grasps about for a rag to wipe himself off with.

He pulls his shirt and breeches on in silence; from across the camp, Geralt is laid on his side, facing away from him, breathing slowly and quietly. For all Jaskier knows he could be already asleep.

A good fuck, that’s all it is—all it can be—to either of them. Just a good fuck between… not exactly friends, but he thinks ‘acquaintances’ is too formal.

Jaskier falls asleep still considering this.

~~~

The morning dawns with clear skies and a crispness to the air that has Jaskier shivering, but apparently does not affect Geralt, who is already packing his things into one of Roach’s saddlebags.

“Morning,” Jaskier gets out, his brain still slow from having only just woken up.

Geralt grunts.

“Talkative today,” he mutters to himself, before stretching under his blanket. His foot and ankle are briefly exposed to the morning air and he shoots them back under, biting back a curse: it’s fucking cold.

Getting dressed is an exercise in not whimpering every time the frigid air hits his skin, but after watching Geralt return dripping from the icy stream, Jaskier is determined not to embarrass himself.

“You’re alright though, aren’t you girl,” he whispers to Roach, patting her flank as he straps on his own saddlebag. Their small camp is completely disassembled and the sun is barely wholly over the horizon.

She nickers back, quietly, and he smiles and moves to her head, scratching behind her ear, and she nudges him with her nose.

“I don’t have anything for you,” he tells her seriously, and she puts her ears back as though she understood him and is displeased. Geralt then comes over with her bridle in his hands.

“Making friends?” the witcher asks, and Jaskier is about to reply when he realises that he wasn’t the one who was being addressed.

“God, you get someone off and they won’t even talk to you,” he mutters, looking at Roach as he says it; she remains impassive. Loyal to her owner, he supposes.

“I don’t owe you anything,” Geralt says then, dropping his hand from the side of Roach’s head where he was pulling the head piece over her ears. The bridle remains with one ear in and one ear out; she just closes her ears and chews on the bit, uncaring about what the humans are doing.

“I know!” Jaskier reassures, a grin in place. “If anything, I owe _you_ , you’re not exactly hard on the eyes—”

“Just so long as we’re clear,” Geralt cuts him off and, honestly, wise choice.

“Maybe I’ll write you a song—”

“Don’t you—”

“A ballad, I think—oh yes, now that would work, find some nice rhymes—”

“Jaskier,” Geralt warns, and Jaskier grins and makes to keep going when Roach snakes her head out and nips him, hard, on the wrist. He yelps.

“Oh! You are so _rude_ —Geralt, you ought to teach your horse some _manners_ ,” he complains, holding the affected wrist tightly in one hand and twisting it away from Roach’s teeth.

“Good girl,” he hears Geralt murmur quietly, and he feels a swell of indignation rise in him, only curtailed by the slight smile on Geralt’s face as he turns away from him.

~~~

The walk down from the mountains should perhaps have felt celebratory, but the atmosphere is anything but. It is cold and the mountains cast long shadows and Jaskier feels himself beginning to feel morose as the high of adrenaline fades and he finds himself thinking probably too hard about what happened.

“You’re quiet,” the witcher says from atop Roach, and Jaskier startles.

“Aren’t you glad for it?” the bard tries for humour, but he thinks it falls flat and instead comes out bitter and upset.

“Something wrong?” Geralt asks, and there is no inflection in his voice. Nothing to say he is actually concerned.

“No. Yes. Just—sometimes, I suppose life—”

“Jaskier,” Geralt interrupts before the bard can get too far into his soliloquy.

“Yes?”

There is a beat of silence, and then Geralt says, “never mind.” Jaskier is curious as to what he wanted to say, but does not have enough of a death wish to pursue it.

He plucks out a jaunty tune on his new lute, courtesy of Filavandrel, and scrapes some words together to go with it, and soon enough the wind is carrying a new song detailing the witcher’s exploits.

~~~

It is a week later and the weather is _miserable_ ; dreary and grey and Jaskier’s boots haven’t been dry for three days now.

Neither Geralt nor Roach seem to notice, nor particularly mind, but apparently Jaskier’s whining is irritating enough that when they happen across what is an abandoned, half-coming-down barn with three walls and half a roof, Geralt steers Roach inside and Jaskier follows.

“Wonder who lived here before,” he says, mostly to make conversation, as the surly witcher coaxes wet wood into burning. They are pressed into a corner of the barn that has the most shelter from the elements, and Jaskier thinks that he might even get _dry_ tonight, if the wood panels they are leaning against don’t give out.

Roach is sprawled on the ground, which is strange, for her, since he has only ever seen her sleep standing, and he supposes that there must not be many monsters about if Roach feels safe enough to lie down. She is ugly in sleep—like a slug, Jaskier thinks uncharitably, since she had bitten him quite hard earlier, and her mane and tail are tangled and her hooves could do with a trim.

And then she grunts and it is so like Geralt that he has to press a fist to his mouth to keep from laughing.

“Whoever they were, they’re long gone,” the aforementioned witcher says, and it takes Jaskier a moment to even remember what he had said.

“I suppose you wouldn’t want to stay somewhere that’s falling down around your ears,” he agrees seriously, watching Geralt’s face. The witcher seems to feel a variety of emotions in several short seconds, and settles eventually on virile distaste.

He pulls one of Roach’s saddlebags to him and rifles through it, eventually pulling something out of it and tossing it unceremoniously at Jaskier’s face. It’s a blanket.

“Bundle up, it’s going to get cold tonight,” Geralt tells him, getting to his feet and wiping his palms on his thighs.

“Well, yes, not like it’s not cold no—wait, where are you going?” Jaskier cuts off his own disgruntled muttering to question the witcher, who is now sheathing a knife on his thigh and onto his belt at the small of his back.

“Hunting,” is all the witcher says, before he disappears on silent feet into the blustery weather and darkening forest.

“Well. Looks like it’s just me and you, Roach,” Jaskier says lightly, looking over at the chestnut mare who is in the process of getting up. She lays her ear flat at his voice and curls her lip at him, before heaving herself to her feet, grunting all the while.

“Yeah. Gotta be able to run away, because if anything comes to get us, I won’t be able to save you,” he tells her, and she closes her eyes and soundly ignores him.

“Great.”

~~~

Dinner that night is roasted rabbit, and water Geralt collected at a creek that he _swears_ is clean and won’t kill him if he drinks it, but Jaskier is sure that there is something off about the taste.

Geralt had apparently taken the time to strip down and wash in one of the streams while returning with their dinner, and had washed his shirt of the blood and mud and sweat that had accumulated over the last week, so it lays drying by the fire, draped across a saddlebag, and Geralt sits shirtless.

“Were there any monsters out there?” he asks the witcher between bites of his rabbit. It isn’t as lean as he’d first thought; the fat drips down his hand where he is tearing the meat apart.

“Only me,” Geralt answers matter-of-factly, through a mouthful of his own meat. Jaskier is struck, suddenly, by how beautiful the warrior is. His face, when not marred by a scowl, could have been sculpted by the gods themselves, and is not undone by his exotic eyes and hair; there is nothing to complain of in regards to his physique.

Geralt looks up, then, and Jaskier is caught looking. He abruptly looks away, fiddling with the loose thread of one of his blankets as he puts down the picked-clean bone of his rabbit leg and wipes his mouth.

“You’re not a monster, Geralt,” he tells him. “You’re weird and you talk to your horse and you’re very good at killing, but you’re not a monster.”

“I’m not weird,” Geralt answers, disgruntled. “And of course I talk to Roach. She’s a good listener and doesn’t share her opinions, _unlike some_ ,” he says pointedly, which Jaskier roundly chooses to ignore.

“Although I suppose you could be called a brute,” he continues. He reaches for a stick from behind him, where he pushed several against the wall in order to clear the floor earlier when they were setting up camp, and begins drawing with it in the dirt. Just shapes and swirls and nothing of any meaning, but it is something to do with his hands rather than plucking the strings of his lute.

“I am _not a brute_ ,” Geralt grouses, and there is the sound of fabric rustling as he pulls on a dry shirt.

“Not a brute, then—maybe a fiend?” Jaskier struggles to hide his grin at the low growl that emanates from the witcher’s throat. It is rumbly and dissatisfied and could almost be mistaken for a purr, if you had fewer survival instincts.

“I suppose it depends on what rhymes. Both are good, I suppose, but in a song you can’t just string words together and expect them to make any sense—you have to think about the _vowels_ , Geralt, and how all of it encapsulates your muse, and—” Jaskier fills the silence, waxing poetic about the finer points of writing a song, and it is only when Geralt growls again and crawls to Jaskier’s side of the fire before pulling the bard into his lap that he finally stops.

“Do you— _ever_ —be quiet?” Geralt snarls between kisses, biting hard on the bard’s lip and drawing an embarrassing mewl from him.

“I can think of a few things that will make me be quiet,” Jaskier gasps into his mouth, and there is a pause, before Geralt is hurriedly unlacing his breeches and Jaskier is pushing back, off of his lap, and then he is bending down and he takes Geralt’s cock into his mouth, and—

It takes mere minutes, but it feels like a lifetime as Jaskier works to accommodate Geralt’s girth. _Fucking witcher mutations_ , he curses to himself as it hits the back of his throat and he gags, before controlling himself and swallowing him down.

Geralt has a tight grip on his hair and begins to take over the pace, first pushing Jaskier’s head up and down, and then soundly fucking his mouth, and Jaskier _lets_ him, enjoys it, even. There is something about the control he has, even when he has little control; he swallows, and a moan is ripped from Geralt as his pace stutters.

He doesn’t come then, though; it takes another few minutes, during which Jaskier’s jaw begins to ache from the rough handling, and when the witcher finally finishes he gags on the seed that spills down his throat and fills his mouth. He swallows, every bit of it, and when he is done the witcher drags him in for a rough kiss and to taste him on his tongue.

Geralt gives as good as he gets; as soon as he is breathing normally (which is annoyingly fast—Jaskier would have liked to have more of an effect on the warrior) he reaches for the ties on Jaskier’s breeches and brings him to completion quickly.

They lay together, afterwards, and then Geralt rises, and returns to his own bed, as before. This time it stings less.

~~~

Over the next week, they fuck only once more, and when Jaskier finally leaves the witcher for fewer near-death experiences, he has resigned himself to the fact that it probably won’t ever happen again and that Geralt will likely have forgotten him the next time they meet.

There is no fanfare to their parting, no grand farewell, nor deep discussions. They are sitting together in a tavern—the first they have been in since before they left for the whole business with the Sylvan and the elves—and drinking beer and eating meat of questionable origin, when Jaskier suddenly just tells him.

“Alright,” is all Geralt says, and they continue to eat in silence. One might even stretch to call it _companionable_ silence.

Then Jaskier finishes his meal, and finishes his drink, and says “goodbye” to which Geralt only grunts, and he leaves.

~~~

Though his companion is gone, the bard manages to stay with Geralt for a long time after his leaving.

It took a few months, but soon he started hearing that song sung in the taverns he visited. His white hair and two swords had always marked him as an outsider, as a freak, as something to be reviled; now they mark him as somebody for whom to buy a beer.

It’s odd.

The first time somebody tries to press a free meal onto him, he nearly causes an incident by assuming they are trying to coerce him into doing a job for them, or some such nonsense. It is only after the barmaid comes over to clear up the misunderstanding and soothe the lad who brought him the plate from his near spitting rage that he understands—the people here are simply being _kind_. Human kindness is something he has not experienced in—a long time, he thinks, if ever.

He accepts the food cautiously, eating it slowly and testing it for poisons with a few spells he can mutter under his breath, but it tastes good and doesn’t kill him. Roach receives the same treatment—although with far more grace, he finds, when he goes to check on her and sees the stable girl fawning over her.

The girl takes one look at him and scampers, frightened, but Roach just lifts her head from the feed bucket she’s been given and nudges him, friendly, managing in the process to wipe wet feed all down his front.

From then on, it is not uncommon for him to get at least one free drink whenever he manages to find himself in an inn, and one time he even wrangles a free berth to sleep in and a poky lean-to for Roach to shelter under, when the weather was particularly atrocious and a villager found him attempting to set up camp under a tree that has certainly seen better days.

It is odd to think of the bard out there somewhere, oblivious to Geralt’s own movements and yet still managing to earn his gratitude in ways most humans don’t manage to. Geralt doesn’t think of him all the time, but when he does it is usually because somebody is singing _“toss a coin to your witcher—”_ and he is being plied with drinks and food.

~~~

The next time they meet, Jaskier is running for his life from a cuckolded barkeep and Geralt is trying to enter said inn with a handful of coins for Roach’s dinner and some hay and a need for work.

They run into each other, quite literally—well, Jaskier flails into the witcher and Geralt ends up catching and steadying him, lest he fall on his face—and there is a moment of recognition where they both say one another’s names aloud, as though they cannot quite believe it is _them_ , and then the innkeep comes thundering down and Jaskier grabs Geralt’s hand and runs.

“What did you do?” Geralt asks him sharply as they turn toward the stable block behind the inn.

“Um, well—”

“I’ll have your balls for this, bard!”

“Please tell me you didn’t sleep with his daughter,” Geralt groans, pushing Jaskier behind Roach and pulling her to the front of the stable so that she blocks him from view.

“It was his wife, actually,” the bard’s voice is small, and when Geralt looks it is because he has buried down into her straw bed. He hopes she pissed in it earlier. He’d deserve it—his mare is going to have her dinner late and there might not be any rooms left for him to take, all because the bard can’t keep it in his fucking pants.

“Hey, you!” the innkeep cries, marching up to Geralt with the stride of a man who is far too confident, considering just what he is marching toward.

“Yes?” Geralt turns, his golden eyes reflecting curiously in the torchlight, the silver medallion glinting on his chest.

“You—the White Wolf,” the innkeep manages, before shaking off the awe and fixing him with a steely glare. Honestly, Geralt’s impressed.

“That bard was singing about you, earlier. You and him friends?” the innkeep demands, and Geralt has to give him credit for pure brazenness. Even if it is starting to grate.

Roach hasn’t had her dinner, yet.

“Not sure which bard you’re on about. I don’t make a habit of befriending them, though; I’ve not seen the man who composed that particular song in—years, I think.”

The innkeep squints at him, disbelieving. “Any reason you ran down here?”

Hmm. “My—horse,” he says, thinking quickly. “Forgot to bolt the stable.”

He can tell the innkeep doesn’t believe him, because it was a piss-poor excuse of a lie. Geralt really doesn’t want to spill blood here tonight. He still needs to have Roach fed.

“Alright, then. But if you see him skulking around, you tell him he’s not welcome here—not after what he did to my wife!” and with that the innkeep turns and leaves, shoulders squared and chin held high, and Geralt watches him leave, bemused. It isn’t often he gets yelled at, these days.

“What am I going to do! My lute’s in there—my _clothes_ , oh, it’s all in my room,” Jaskier groans to himself, sitting up from the straw bed. Roach turns and fixes him with a steely eye. “Alright, alright, I’m going,” he mutters to her, pulling himself up and edging past her. Geralt unbolts the stable door for him.

“You have straw in your hair,” he tells him, and Jaskier shoots him a filthy look.

“Oh, what am I going to do,” he moans, mood abruptly changing from harried to aggrieved, and he leans against the filthy stone wall, looking at Geralt as though he has all the answers.

“Find a different town,” he suggests, and begins walking back toward the entrance.

Jasker bounds after him. “Or,” he begins, “—or, you could rent a room, and then sneak me in!”

Geralt doesn’t even consider it. “No.”

“But—”

“No.”

“How about you go into the room that I rented and just open the window, then.”

“Why? Need to air it out after all that strenuous activity?” Jaskier flushes, because, yes, he had had sex with the innkeeper’s wife in there, but actually that wasn’t the reason at all.

“No! If you open the window, I’ll be able to climb up and collect my things. Maybe even sleep in a proper bed!” he exclaims, obviously enamoured with the idea, and Geralt snorts.

“You? Climb all the way up there? Not going to happen.”

“Now, Geralt, don’t be don’t dismissive; stranger things have happened,” he tells him jovially, as though now that he has this plan (that obviously isn’t going to work) all is right with the world and there is no longer any need for him to be upset.

Geralt just grunts, and pushes open the door to the inn. He needs to get Roach her dinner.

~~~

 _This isn’t because I like him_ , Geralt tells himself as he unlatches the window and throws it open wide. He doesn’t see Jaskier outside, but he might just still be with Roach.

The room is sparsely furnished, but he would wager that it is cleaner than many of the other rooms in the place what with Jaskier’s propensity for comfort, and his things are scattered in neat piles and orderly rows in a haphazard fashion about the room.

Then he hears a bird whistle.

Or, rather, he hears a poor imitation of a bird who has possibly got a whistle stuck in its throat, so he leans out of the window again and, lo and behold, there is Jaskier, looking up at him.

“Geralt!”

“Yes, I see you,” Geralt responds conversationally, as though this were a perfectly ordinary occurrence.

“Can you give me a hand?”

Geralt leans out of the window further and looks closely at the wall; luckily, Jaskier’s room is right above the kitchens, and so there is a cover over the side door into it for when the doors need to be thrown open to let out the heat. It ought to be sturdy enough to bear a mans weight.

Geralt looks down at the ground, considers, then leaps out of the window altogether, missing the small roof and landing lightly, quietly, beside Jaskier.

“Good to see you,” the bard said, lifting a hand as though to drop a hand of Geralt’s shoulder and then obviously thinking better of it.

“Come here,” Geralt grunted, leaning against the wall. Jaskier ambled over, evidently not in any hurry, and scowled when Geralt clasped his hands together and offered him a leg up onto the roof. He accepted it and scrambled up in a most ungainly fashion, but then he was up, and pulling himself through the window, Geralt following nimbly after him.

“Thank you, Geralt, I _knew_ you’d help me, that old bonehead—”

“Hush,” Geralt tells him harshly, listening out for footsteps in the hall. “They think nobody is in here. Grab your things, I’ll bring you to my room,” he tells Jaskier, and the bard grumbles and chatters inanely to himself as he gathers his belongings.

Geralt’s room is not nearly as polished as Jaskier’s was; Geralt cuts costs wherever he can, and as he mostly sleeps outside on the ground, any bed is an improvement.

“Charming in here,” is all Jaskier has to say.

Then they are both standing silently in the room.

“So…” Jaskier begins, but Geralt is already upon him, mouths clashing horribly as they try to remember how they fit together.

The kiss slows, become more mellow, and Geralt finds his hand sliding into Jaskier’s hair just as the bard puts his hands low on his hips, and their bodies press together as they find their rhythm.

It is too slow. Too _emotional._ Geralt suddenly brings broth of his arms to palm Jaskier’s ass, then lifts him, and the bard wraps his legs around Geralt’s waist without breaking rhythm. The kiss deepens, becomes filthier, and Geralt manages to walk the both of them over to the bed.

He tosses Jaskier unceremoniously onto the bed, but he doesn’t seem to mind—he unlaces his breeches with fervour and shucks his shirt off over his head, dumping it on the floor beside the bed where it will no doubt acquire god only knows how much dust and rat hairs and droppings.

Geralt’s shirt meets it mere seconds later.

He climbs onto the bed, the poor straw mattress barely sinking under his weight, and crawls up the length of Jaskier, straddling him, until he can claim his lips.

They both briefly lose themselves in it, kissing as though their lives depended on it—until Geralt accidentally rubbed a very pressing matter against Jaskier’s hip and they both broke apart to inhale sharply.

“Fuck,” Geralt groans, very eloquently.

“Nggh,” Jaskier groans, even more eloquently.

Geralt manages to get a hand between them, to pull his cock out of his breeches and line it up with Jaskier’s, to fist them together and give them one hard pull.

Neither of them last long, but Geralt makes sure to last longer than Jaskier, and when they are done he rolls off and to the side.

He takes a few minutes simply to breathe, and then he opens his eyes again and sits up, ready to kick Jaskier onto the floor. However, when he looks over, it is to see the bard already asleep, a tiny furrow between his brows.

Geralt considers.

Then he gets up, and finds a relatively clean rag from his belongings, and wipes the both of them down.

He grabs another blanket from one of his saddlebags and takes it to the bed with him, and makes sure to cover the both of them with it before he reaches and pulls up the threadbare sheet the inn provides its customers.

Cocooned with Jaskier’s heat a firm presence to his left, Geralt turns away from it, tries not to think about what all of this means for him, and goes to sleep.

~~~

The next morning, Geralt is already awake and going through his things, and Jaskier very carefully does not mention the still-warm spot on the mattress beside him, and Geralt’s sleep-ruffled appearance. Some things it is better to simply take in stride and then never mention again.

“Thank you,” Jaskier says suddenly, and Geralt stills. “For letting me sleep here last night—thank you. You didn’t have to.”

Geralt only grunts, and Jaskier thinks it is best to leave it at that.

Geralt lets Jaskier down out of the window again—there is no soft landing, so it involves mostly dangling Jaskier by his wrists and then dropping him to land on the ground.

“You could have shattered my legs,” Jaskier grumbles to him later, when Geralt has left through the main entrance with his own belongings and they are on their way.

“Stop whining. You’re fine,” Geralt tells him brusquely, and Jaskier grumbles some more, albeit under his breath, and he looks at the witcher very carefully out of the corner of his eye to see if he is truly angry.

Not angry, he thinks, just annoyed—and this thought is waylaid by such a _longing_ that he is surprised Geralt doesn’t turn and look at him with the way he flushes a deep crimson and his heart rate shoots way up.

They are leaving the village, Jaskier and Geralt side by side, Roach being led from Geralt’s left as she stretches her neck and nose as far forward as she can and stubbornly tries to plant her feet. Jaskier doesn’t blame her; up ahead the clouds are swirling dangerously and huge white gusts of wind are crashing them together, and he doesn’t particularly want to weather that storm with just a bedroll and a campfire either.

But, Geralt is not to be deterred, and so the three of them venture onwards.

~~~

Three weeks later, they are in another inn and Jaskier is soaping Geralt up with glee.

They haven’t fucked since Jaskier woke up to a warm spot beside him and Geralt studiously not looking at him, and so he hasn’t brought it up either. If Geralt wants to put an end to this then so be it—it was fun while it lasted.

“It is one night bodyguarding your very best friend in the whole wide world. How hard could it be?”

“I’m not your friend.”

“Oh? Oh, really? Oh, you usually just let strangers rub chamomile onto your lovely bottom?”

Geralt shoots him a scorching glare, and Jaskier just grins. There are a few other ways he could have ended that sentence, and the both of them know it.

Geralt still looks unimpressed, so Jaskier flops down the rag he’d been viciously squeezing the water out of and walks behind the witcher, who twists to try to keep him in his line of sight.

“Think about it,” Jaskier says slowly, his voice dipping into the sultry tone he always uses to get what he wants out of men and women alike. He appraises the row of oils before him, before selecting one—chamomile and lemon—and pouring some over his hands.

“Food, women, and wine,” he repeats, before taking that step and rubbing his hands over and into Geralt’s shoulders. The witcher tenses horribly when his hands make contact, but he relaxes almost imperceptibly, bit by bit, as Jaskier works the oils more into his skin and kneads his twisted muscle until they release.

“And politics, and courtiers that cluck like hens, and dancing,” Geralt counters, though his voice sounds somewhat strained.

“Dancing can be fun. Only you’re too boorish for anybody to want to dance with you, and I bet you’re rubbish at it anyway, which is why you dislike it so,” Jaskier murmurs, and it is good that the both of them are paying more attention to his hands sweeping lower and lower over Geralt’s chest to really listen to what they are saying.

“I can dance,” Geralt argues without any heat. “You think I can—fight the way I can— _ff-fight_ without being a—ah—able to dance?” Jaskier’s hands swept dangerously low on his stomach, ghosting against his groin, and Geralt is forced to use nearly all of his iron-clad will so as to not buck upwards, seeking frictions. This is a game now, and he refuses to lose.

“Why don’t you come, then? Come and dance with me,” Jaskier’s voice is silken soft, emphasising the words _come_ only very slightly, and he feels rather vindicated when Geralt bites his lip and throws his head back, rumbling low in his throat—very much like a cat purring, and equally as involuntary.

“Won’t you be too busy playing your lute to dance with me?” Geralt manages to get out, and Jaskier pouts.

“I’d always make time for you,” he says, rather more seriously than he meant to, but Geralt only looks at him with hooded eyes before reaching up, grabbing his collar with one soapy hand, and dragging him down.

Their mouths clash together, and it takes them no time at all to find their familiar rhythm. Seconds or maybe minutes or maybe days later Geralt stands, water dripping from him in a torrent, and he steps out of the tub, utterly naked.

Jaskier groans into his mouth and presses himself against him, utterly uncaring for the state of his clothes, and he _whimpers_ (though he will deny it ‘till his dying day) when Geralt places one large hand on his arse and squeezes. Jaskier gets the message and, between the two of them, he is hoisted up and he wraps his legs around Geralt’s waist before he can fall.

They break the kiss and Geralt mouths over his jaw, biting and sucking, before following the line of his throat, biting hard enough at his pulse point so as to leave a mark, he’s sure. His head is afire with arousal and need, his cock hard and leaking already through his underclothes, pressed against Geralt’s own manhood through his layers of clothes.

Geralt manages to manoeuvre them over to the cabinet and sets Jaskier atop it, his hands already at Jaskier’s doublet.

“Don’t—you _dare_ —oh, _ohh_ —tear those buttons,” Jaskier gasps out, one hand coming up to grab Geralt’s shoulder and the other flying up to grab his hand before he can do any further damage.

They get his shirt off over his head, and take a brief pause to pull off Jaskier’s remaining clothes, before they are pressed together and kissing feverishly again.

Jaskier grasps behind him wildly, and comes up with another bottle of oil; he meets Geralt’s eyes there is a bolt of understanding that passes between them.

This is new. For the two of them, this is uncharted territory. This is a change to their relationship they cannot rescind.

Geralt takes the oil and, for the first time that Jaskier sees, looks mildly worried as he dribbles it over his fingers and then lowers his hand to circle around his hole.

Jaskier inhales sharply and his eyes flutter shut as he is breached. He feels a hand, oh so gently, carefully cup his cheek, and he turns his face into it, craving the connection. Geralt’s finger moves in him, and it isn’t the first time he has been fucked but it is certainly the first time that it feels like it _matters_.

After several minutes, when Jaskier is gasping and whining and his cock is leaking, a second and then third finger is added in quick succession and it feels as though somebody has punched the air from him.

It is too much, and then it isn’t enough, not _nearly_ enough, and he is desperately fucking his hips down onto Geralt’s hand so much so that the witcher, panting himself, is forced to grab his hip in a bruising grip, so that he doesn’t land himself on the floor.

“Geralt—Geralt _please_ ,” Jaskier whines helplessly, the first proper words that they have exchanged in minutes, and Geralt bares his teeth in a feral grin. He withdraws his hand and settles it on Jaskier’s other hip before steadying them both.

Pushing in is overwhelming and devastating and a few tears slip from Jaskier’s eyes because he knows he cannot have this moment again. Cannot have this for the first time—the burn, and the stretch, and the feeling of Geralt’s hips against his own as he sheathes himself fully, and it is terrible and incredible and, principally, indescribable.

Then one of Geralt’s hands reaches up and wipes a tear from his cheek, a small frown marring that perfect face of ecstasy, and it is too much—too much. It is too much. Jaskier closes his eyes and braces his hands against Geralt’s chest and snarls, _“fucking fuck me now,”_ and Geralt drops his hand from his face and settles it again on his hip, and then he is drawing out and slamming in hard enough to make the entire cabinet crunch against the wall and the door to jump in its frame, and then they are fucking, wild and feral and _gods_ it is good.

Almost too good. Jaskier feels himself teetering against that precipice almost immediately, and he clenches his hands into fists and throws his head back, heaving for breath.

“This hard enough for you?” Geralt growls, and no, it isn’t.

He wraps his legs more firmly around Geralt’s waist. “Barely even noticed you there,” Jaskier shoots back, and then his eyes roll back into his head as Geralt doubles his efforts, fucking harder and deeper and faster. There is a little pain, now, and Jaskier thought that it would help keep the edge off, help keep him away from that precipice—but it only makes the ground crumble from beneath his feet and he is falling, head first, into the hardest orgasm he may ever have had.

Geralt compounds this by leaning forward and sinking his teeth into Jaskier’s shoulder, and he _wails_ , and then Geralt is roaring and Jaskier manages to spare perhaps half a thought for the other patrons before Geralt is coming too, and he blacks out somewhat.

He comes too with himself settled back fully on the cabinet and Geralt standing between his legs, hands resting on the wood on either side of his thighs, his head bowed and leaning very gently against Jaskier’s chest.

Jaskier rests his chin on the top of Geralt’s head, then reaches up and wraps his arms about Geralt’s neck, pulling him closer.

It is terrifyingly intimate.

They stand there several long moments as their sweat cools and Jaskier’s mind goes into overdrive trying to discern what Geralt is thinking of all this.

Thankfully, Geralt is exactly as forthcoming as he always is. He abruptly wriggles out of Jaskier’s hold, reminding him somewhat of a recalcitrant cat who has begged for affection and then precipitously decided they no longer care for it.

He turns away without comment, and grabs one of the drying cloths folded neatly on the basket at the end of the room, before giving himself a cursory wipe over. There is still a sheen on his skin when he pulls on the silks Jaskier set aside for him. He leaves the room with Jaskier still sat on the cabinet, wondering where the hell any of this is going.

~~~

“Where the _hell_ are you going?” Jaskier is very obviously furious, and by the gods is it a sight. Geralt had always seen Jaskier as smaller than him, less imposing; the bard certainly did nothing to dissuade the notion, with his silks and his lute and his perfumes.

But he looks like a storm made flesh as he stalks towards the witcher now, eyes flashing dangerously and the front of his shirt half undone, baring the bulk of his chest to any who dared look. Apparently, the weeks and months he spent on the road at any one time with the witcher had given him more than just songs; there is a ripple of muscle that distracts Geralt horribly from the ire on his face.

“Jaskier,” he rasps out, and the bard looks even more furious.

“ _Where are you going?”_ he demands again, and this shakes Geralt back to the here and now.

“I can’t stay,” he tells him, for once allowing regret to wash over his features. “You know I can’t. A Child Surprise—what would I do with it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even particularly care—seems to me you don’t _have_ to claim it, Geralt. But were you really going to leave without saying goodbye?” Jaskier’s eyes are on him and it is the greatest regret of Geralt’s life that he can’t read the emotions roiling in them. That he hasn’t gotten close enough to humans to understand.

He knows what emotions _feel_ like, churning in his belly, flashing hot and cold across his own body, but the expressions of those he cares about are like a foreign language to him.

There is a moment where he wonders, bewilderedly, why Jaskier would want him to bid goodbye to an unborn Child Surprise, before he runs over the words again in his head and parses what Jaskier _actually_ means.

“I suppose—”

“Suppose _what_ , Geralt. No, hold on—let me guess. I’m not important enough? You forgot about me? No, wait—you were sneaking out so as to avoid me. You’d leave me to extricate myself from this mess and—”

Geralt is kissing Jaskier desperately, feverishly, their mouths colliding in a slide of tongues and wet lips and a little too much teeth.

“I’m not avoiding you,” Geralt growls out when they part for breath—only an inch or so; their faces are still pressed together, they are breathing each other’s air. “I’m not, Jaskier. You are—”

They never learn what Jaskier is, because he has surged forward and pinned Geralt against the wall and they are kissing again, and some small, treacherous part of Geralt is glad, because he’s not entirely _sure_ what Jaskier is to him and he doesn’t want to say something he is going to regret later.

Then Jaskier has a hand down his breeches and the hallway they are in is entirely too public for this, but Geralt doesn’t have time to complain before he is being turned none too gently and shoved up against the wall, Jaskier pressing against him from behind, and fuck, he’s only maybe three inches taller then the bard and when Jaskier kicks his feet apart and shoves his hand further into Geralt’s smallclothes the difference is negligible.

“You were just going to leave me?” Jaskier hisses, and Geralt bites off a moan, his cock jumping into Jaskier’s hand when he palms it roughly.

His hand is withdrawn, and Geralt’s breathing stutters at the loss of contact. He tries to put his own hand on himself and is shoved further into the wall. “ _No_ ,” Jaskier hisses, and he moans, quietly.

He could very easily shove the bard off, put an end to all of this, but very few people have ever pushed Geralt around and he finds that he is quite enjoying himself.

Then a hand is shoving his breeches down, baring his arse to the cool air of the corridor, and a slicked finger is circling his hole, and he moans louder and prays to every god he’s never believed in that nobody comes across them like this, with the witcher moaning like a whore for the bard’s slicked finger in his arse.

“You like this?” Jaskier asks him then, his voice—ordinarily honey-sweet and smooth—is a low rasp in his ear and Geralt purrs under the attention. A second finger is added and he has no trouble adjusting to accommodate it; the burn feeds into his pleasure and he is grinding back into Jaskier’s hand, begging for more without opening his mouth.

“Suppose—suppose I get you all worked open, slick and willing,” Jaskier begins, and Geralt thuds his head against the wall. This isn’t going anywhere fast, apparently, as a third finger is added and Jaskier takes his sweet time in moving his hand, in and out.

“So willing—and so open for me, Geralt. Suppose you were close—just one hard fuck, a few strokes of your cock, and you’d be done, coming _all over yourself_ —” Geralt interrupts with a truly embarrassing whine, and Jaskier spreads all of his fingers and hits _the spot_ , brushing against it, and Geralt would have come then and there had Jaskier not snaked his hand around and grabbed his cock, right at the base.

“Not so quickly,” Jaskier breathes into his ear, and Geralt throws his head back, pushes his body back—not too hard, not enough to send the bard sprawling; he is careful even in the throes of ecstasy to accommodate the discrepancies between Jaskier’s ordinary human strength and his own mutated one. He feels every line of Jaskier’s muscles press against his back, feel the length of his hardness against the cleft of his arse, feels hot breath against the back of his neck.

He wants to beg. Wants to utter that ‘please’ that will surely get him what he wants. Wants to break and put his heart into Jaskier’s hands, damn the consequences.

But he can’t, and he won’t.

“Say I got you slick and open and willing, and right on the edge, and then I just _left you here,”_ Jaskier hisses, adding his smallest finger, before twisting his hand and pressing hard against the spot he found earlier. Geralt growls, bucks into Jaskier’s hand, not receiving the friction he so desperately needs and only frustrating himself further. His orgasm is _right there_ , stopped only by Jaskier’s unrelenting grip on the base of his cock.

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” he snarls, and he sounds feral and wanton and no _wonder_ people don’t like witchers, no wonder Jaskier is going to just leave him here, he doesn’t even sound _human_ —

Jaskier removes his hand and Geralt wants to fall to his knees and beg forgiveness for everything he’s ever done to the bard, and then his cock is pushing in and he wants to fall to his knees in supplication to this _being—_

It is over fairly quickly. Geralt comes, hard, pretty much as soon as Jaskier takes his hand off his cock, no stimulation needed. Jaskier fucks him through it, brutal enough that Geralt knows he will be feeling this the whole time he is on Roach, brutal enough that Geralt is an overstimulated, twitching mess when Jaskier comes himself and draws out.

Jaskier tucks himself away and laces himself up, and this time, it is he who leaves Geralt.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Geralt whispers to himself.

~~~

“Geralt! Hello. What’s it been, months? Years? What is time, anyway. I heard you were in town. Are you following me, you scamp?” Jaskier’s voice is pretty much the last thing Geralt expected to hear, but is certainly not the most unwelcome.

“Jaskier,” he greets, throwing the net out again.

“So.” The bard cuts himself off, perhaps a little unsure of himself.

“So,” Geralt agrees, looking up at Jaskier finally. The bard hasn’t aged a day since he left him, slick and hollowly satisfied with his come drying on himself in that hallway in Cintra.

“Um.”

Geralt doesn’t respond, only lifts a brow. Maybe he’s being a little unfair to the bard, but _he_ left _Geralt_ —it’s his job to pick up the pieces.

“Are you—how have you been?” he asks, awkwardly, and Geralt huffs a small, tired laugh before turning back to the lake and dragging his net in. Nothing. He balls it up, before casting it out again.

“—hungry, unless my very best friend wants to share some of his fish?” Jaskier sounds hopeful, and Geralt doesn’t know what the fuck he’s going on about. The net has come back empty, again.

“—carp? Pike? Cod? I’m just—I’m just naming fish that I know—Geralt? Geralt!”

The bard scrambles to follow him, his apparel laughably unsuitable for the outdoors, and Geralt pays him little heed.

“What—what are you looking for then, if not for fish?” Jaskier sounds so carefully curious that Geralt pauses and sighs.

“A djinn,” he says.

“A djinn?”

“Yes.”

“Wha—why are you—like a djinn, djinn? Genie, banned magic, that kind of djinn?”

“Yes.”

Jaskier barks a short laugh.

“What on earth do you want a djinn for?”

“I can’t _fucking_ sleep,” Geralt whirls and snaps at the bard, who has been getting on his nerves for several minutes now and maybe it’s not fair to take it out on him but—

“Hang on. You can’t sleep, so your first immediate thought is hunting for a _djinn?”_ Jaskier sounds almost offended.

“Wasn’t my _first_ thought,” Geralt grouses to himself, but Jaskier isn’t particularly listening to him, it seems.

“What have you tried?” he demands, and Geralt looks at him queerly.

“What?”

“What have you _tried_ , Geralt? You know, to sleep?”

It is such a bizarre question that it brings him up short. The answer that springs immediately to mind is, well, ‘everything’; Geralt is decades older than Jaskier, and has exhausted his long list of sleeplessness remedies, many of which Jaskier likely doesn’t even know about. His gut tells him that Jaskier is getting at something, however, so Geralt starts talking.

“Sorcerers, and magic—have you tried having a good fuck?” Jaskier asks him carefully, and Geralt blinks at him.

“Of course.”

“Who with? Because most of those whores don’t actually give a shit, you know—”

“Jaskier.”

They look at each other. Then, somehow, Geralt is being pressed against a tree and Jaskier’s hands are in his breeches, on his cock, and then Jaskier is on his knees in front of him and Geralt’s erection is disappearing into his mouth.

It is utterly depraved, out here in the wet, mud squelching beneath his feet when he shifts, trying to balance himself. His fingers tear bark off the tree behind him when he grabs hold of it, and Jaskier hums around him when he winds his fingers into his hair instead, tugging lightly.

Jaskier swallows around him, and Geralt’s hips snap forward off their own accord, and he looks down, alarmed and ready to apologise—to find Jaskier looking up at him, arousal writ across his face clear as day, and so Geralt takes a stronger grip on his hair and fucks into his mouth, slowly. Jaskier moans, wanton, the vibrations curling low in Geralt’s groin, and it takes only a few minutes of steadily fucking the bard’s mouth for him to come.

Geralt’s hand slips from him hair before either of them can call it _caressing_ , and Jaskier presses his head against Geralt’s thigh for merely a moment before drawing away so that neither of them can call it _affection_ , and they both tidy themselves away before they can look one another in the eye.

“Do you—” Geralt starts, making an aborted motion toward Jaskier, and they both know what he is offering.

“Sorted,” Jaskier says quietly, and they fall into silence again. Jaskier is looking closely at his face, and Geralt figures that he can bear the inspection.

“Go on then, find your djinn,” Jaskier finally sighs, and Geralt wants to say something—anything—but settles for taking the net and casting it back into the water.

~~~

Jaskier’s estimation of Rinde is lowering dramatically by the minute, he thinks sourly to himself as he sits some distance away from the manor. Chiraedan hands him a skin of sour wine and he takes it, gulping it down, both of them thinking very hard about anything but what Geralt and that crazed bitch Yennefer are doing.

“You—I am glad that you are well,” the elf begins, and Jaskier has to bite back a scoff.

 _Well_. He feels anything _but_ after the few days that he has had. Granted, he was unconscious for a lot of it, and he understands that Geralt had some adventures of his own while he was in his magical healing trance, but considering the fact that Geralt is currently getting laid (with _someone else_ , his mind points out, and he shuts that line of thinking down with as much viciousness as he can muster—which in his present state is rather a lot) and Jaskier himself isn’t, he thinks that he is perfectly right to be complaining.

“Not as well as Geralt,” he settles for muttering, and Chiraedan sighs.

“Yes, she is _beautiful_ , isn’t she? Didn’t you see her eyes? They—” the elf continues, but Jaskier is rather effectively shutting him out by vividly imagining somebody else’s eyes.

“Not as nice as Geralt’s eyes,” he mumbles out, and perhaps the wine is stronger than he thought. Chiraedan looks at him sharply, before taking the skin back and gulping down a healthy swig.

“You—and him? But—” the elf looks back at the house, and Jaskier laughs, caustically.

“Yeah,” he says, dry as a bone, and the elf silently hands him the wine.

~~~

Yennefer—everything about Yennefer is horribly distracting, and Geralt can’t well complain about how he has hurt his bard when she is doing _that_ with her hips.

“So him being injured—that was _your_ fault?” she questions, a light dancing in her eyes that he is too tired to try and decipher.

“ _Yes_ ,” he sighs, leaning back against the—couch, he thinks it is, although every bit of this furniture is destroyed and he’s pretty sure couches aren’t supposed to have table legs protruding from the seat cushions.

“Oh, Geralt—Geralt, this is too good. Does he know?”

“Not sure.”

She looks at him then, _really_ looks at him, and what she sees—it is uncomfortable and her first thought is horribly uncharitable. “You care for him,” is what she says instead.

“No.”

“No?” Yennefer is surprised. Surprised that anybody could be this hardheaded. “You spent—an entire night riding hard to get him to safety, you dealt with all of _this—”_ she gesticulates, indicating the general disarray of the room and the bloodied states of both of them “—in order to heal him. You were upset with the way you parted when he was in that healing trance. And rather than fucking me, you’re _still_ grousing about how you’ve treated him.”

“Only because he didn’t deserve it, not because I—wait,” Geralt cuts himself off, looking at her with those incredible eyes, and she hides a smirk as he considers what she had said.

She isn’t sure who moves first. Only that first they are kissing, and then they are undressing, and then she has sheathed him in her fully and _oh, gods_ , she hasn’t had a man like this in a very long time.

Afterwards, she rolls off of him, makes some quip about how the satisfaction was short lived—but admittedly compelling.

Then she turns her head to the side, and finds him asleep.

~~~

The bard and Chiraedan are getting steadily drunk outside when she finds them. It’s amusing, the way Jaskier spills wine over himself—and where did those skins come from?—when he flinches, his face heating at the memory of their last encounter, and she offers him a smirk.

“Your witcher—nice ride,” she says coyly, but he only nods, as though he already knew that she and him and lain together. Hm. Then his gaze flicks up, and she follows it, and—oh, the _windows_. Had they watched? She decides it doesn’t matter.

“You should be careful with him,” she tells him, and her voice is so serious that he looks at her properly for the first time, she thinks. Every time Jaskier looked at her previously, it was as though he was doing so out of the corner of his eye, looking at her like one would look at the sun; with his full attention on her, she can almost see what Geralt likes about him. “I think he’s going to hurt you.”

Jaskier looks… almost offended at that. “Bit rich, coming from you.”

Yennefer shrugs. It’s a fair comment, but he needs also to heed her advice—Geralt can’t, or wont, admit to himself that he likes the bard—and how long have they known one another now? This will only end in heartache, for the both of them.

“Chiraedan, come,” she tells the elf, sweeping past Jaskier without looking at him. The elf scrambles to follow her, still enamoured, it seems—useful—and she leaves the bard and the witcher to whatever mistakes they’ll make, hopefully without involving her.

~~~

Geralt comes to with Yennefer long gone, though her scent still lingers on the air and he can almost feel her hands still gracing his side.

There is somebody in the room with him.

He grabs his sword and springs to his feet, flourishing it with a snarl on his lips and ripping out of his throat.

To his credit, Jaskier doesn’t even blink. Only continues tuning his lute, tightening the string very carefully. At his feet are the remains of a string that evidently had snapped.

Geralt wonders how long he had been laying there; if Jaskier had snapped the string while he slept, or if he was merely doing standard repairs. Wonders if Jaskier had been singing, had been writing any new songs, what he had been singing of—

And then he shakes himself, because he doesn’t care about any of those things. Jaskier isn’t really a friend.

“You’re awake then, I see,” the bard breaks his reverie, and Geralt looks carefully at him. There is something off about his tone that is poking at his witcher senses, though he isn’t sure what.

“…yes,” Geralt says, for lack of anything better to say.

Jaskier looks up then. “Have fun?”

Maybe it’s his face. Has he changed his hair? Geralt hasn’t seen him in so long and he hasn’t had much time for _noticing_ things in the last few days. Does he look older? Geralt thought he established before that Jaskier looks as young and as sprightly as when he first met him—but that isn’t quite true, either. There’s something about the eyes; a weariness to them that was never there before.

Geralt doesn’t think it is his age that makes his eyes look so tired.

“Geralt?”

“Er—yeah. Fun. Right.” Maybe Yennefer told him something.

“Yeah, if you’re gonna have sex, don’t do it in front of a huge fucking window,” Jaskier tells him, and Geralt silently curses himself for not paying more attention. Although…

“You and I had sex in the middle of a fucking castle hallway,” he tells the bard, defensive.

“There was nobody around! The queen _and_ the princess had just gotten married! A royal baby had just been announced! There would have been nobody around—”

“You couldn’t have been _sure—_ ”

“You could have easily pushed me off and we both know it—”

“It’s not _me_ with the problem here, it’s _you—_ ”

“Look, if you don’t want to fuck me anymore you can just say so! I’d rather you did that than go around flaunting how much you want to fuck other people in front of me. I can take a hint, Geralt,” Jaskier finally snaps, and Geralt is taken aback.

“What?” he says, intelligently.

Jaskier crosses his arms across his chest, as though to protect himself. “You know full well. I can’t believe you don’t even have the decency to—to _tell_ me—”

“Jaskier, I don’t owe you anything,” Geralt cuts him off, a strange feeling blooming in his chest. He absolutely refuses to label it _guilt_. “We’ve just—we’ve been having fun, is all. That’s _all_ it is. I don’t care if you go around shagging half the continent—” ( _I do, I do care_ , a treacherous little voice inside his head calls plaintively, and he squashes it down with all the intent he gives to every one of his monster hunts) “—and you’re not the only one I’ve fucked since I met you. You can’t—you can’t expect—”

“No, I suppose I can’t,” Jaskier says defeatedly, cutting Geralt off before he can utter what he already knows and does not want to hear. “It was unfair of me,” he continues, and Geralt nods his head ever so slightly. The moment is tense, and the air is heavy with expectation that one of them will _say_ something and that the tension will snap like a cord and everything will be okay again, but there is nothing that either of them is willing to say that will do so.

Jaskier decides to try for levity. “I suppose if you’re going to go for anyone, an incredibly sexy, incredibly bonkers witch is a good start.” Maybe it falls a little flat, but one corner of Geralt’s mouth lifts up in a half smile.

“Yennefer is—so much more than that,” he says, and there is a look on his face and a quality to his tone that cuts Jaskier right to the bone, and he decides then and there that he is always going to love this impossible man with everything that he is.

“I could be your wingman!” he exclaims, fighting the urge to be sick, or perhaps to start crying, and Geralt looks at him with something like relief that Jaskier is being so good about all of this. So accommodating. Jaskier would accommodate _anything_ for him.

“You’re still not singing songs about my cock,” the witcher tells him gruffly.

“Oh, but I have _so many_ ideas—you _literally_ saved me by seducing a witch with your magical cock, oh, this is _golden_ —” and Jaskier is off, talking about everything while saying nothing of any value, and the two of them make their way out of the manor house, an uneasiness hanging in the air between them that they are both very valiantly trying to ignore.

Roach greets them with impatient nickers and stamps her hoof as Jaskier ties the lute onto her saddle, but for once she doesn’t try to kick him.

Even the fucking horse is pitying him.

Geralt swings into the saddle and turns her west, toward the setting sun, and Jaskier walks beside them both, still chattering, his heart breaking silently in his chest.

~~~

The next weeks and months are some of the hardest Jaskier has ever spent with Geralt.

The food is good, the nights are short, the air is warm. The ground is firm and the grass springy when they camp outside, and for the most part they sleep on proper mattresses with clean sheets whenever they find an inn to spend the night in. The monsters die quickly and the coin is good.

And they fuck several times more, and Jaskier’s heart cracks open wider each and every time.

They are laying together side by side, chests heaving, sweat cooling. Jaskier’s arse feels like a plough has made its way through and he’s come two times in as many hours; he’s feeling worn and satisfied and yet strangely unsatisfied.

Geralt, for his part, has closed his eyes and looks on the verge of sleep; Jaskier knows he is meant to stand and wipe himself off and make his way to the other bed, now, but he wants just a few moments longer, basking in the afterglow, revelling in Geralt’s closeness.

Geralt looks to be sleeping, but then a hand finds its way to Jaskier’s hip, and the contact makes him jump, though he very carefully does not say anything.

The seconds tick by, and Jaskier’s entire focus is pinned on that hand.

Is this it? What is this—is Geralt--? Is something happening here?

Jaskier’s heart is thudding in his chest, and he tries to clamp down on the rising hope but it is already blooming like a stubborn flower shooting through the icy crust of late winter.

Then Geralt grunts, the grunt he makes when he is waking up, and the hand is removed just as suddenly, and the witcher turns over, away from Jaskier, and that tiny fragile flower of hope turns to dust in his mouth.

It was only a movement made in the clutches of sleep, but somehow… somehow it was just a little too much. Just a bit too far.

His heart is cut open and bleeding from all the times Geralt has unwittingly hurt him, but it is this last moment that finally runs it through entirely, and Jaskier forces himself to his feet and down the hall to the washroom before he can say something he doesn’t mean.

Once there, however, he isn’t sure what he meant to do in the first place. He doesn’t feel particularly like crying, he’s more—resigned, he supposes.

He’s always known that this is how it would be. Geralt is—a hundred years old, or older; he’s lived entire lives without Jaskier by his side and will live entire lifetimes more once Jaskier is gone, and this is something he has known since they first met.

Geralt cares little for him, he understands. Jaskier is—fun. He’s a distraction. He’s a quick fuck on the cold nights on the road and he’s an extra hand when the witcher needs bandaging, and that’s all.

The thing is… the thing is, Jaskier just isn’t sure if it’s _enough_ anymore.

Geralt is still sleeping when he returns to the room.

He packs his things quietly, digging out lute strings and scraps of silk and perfumed oils from among the witcher’s possessions in the saddlebags, and when he turns back Geralt is awake and looking at him through slitted eyes.

“I’m leaving,” he says. Geralt does not reply.

“Bye, then.” Leaving has never left such a bitter taste in his mouth.

~~~

It is several years more before Geralt and Jaskier meet again, and the pain is barely a consideration when Jaskier invites the witcher to his table and plies him with ale.

“Jaskier. How has life been treating you?” the witcher rasps to him, and he had forgotten how utterly delectable Geralt’s voice was, how much the witcher affected him whenever they were close.

“Oh, you know,” Jaskier begins, casting about for any topic other than _you broke my heart, you damn bastard, and you don’t even seem to have noticed_. “Quite well, in fact. My tales of you and your ventures are quite the hit.”

The witcher grunts. “Mm. I know. I’m getting _recognised,_ bard, even when you’re not there.”

Jaskier can’t tell if he’s complaining or not. The witcher says everything with that same grumbly tone; it could easily be that he’s rather grateful to the bard for spreading tales of his prowess and getting him free drinks every time he shoulders into a tavern.

“And that’s… a bad thing, is it?” he decided to cautiously ask, and Geralt shoots him a still-indecipherable look.

Then he sighs, and says, “no, not particularly. But the other witchers are getting jealous.”

 _Oh, if that’s all._ “Maybe I should go find one of them, then. I bet they’d be better company than you are,” Jaskier jokes, and Geralt jerks his head up and fixes him with a—with a _glare_ , except there’s something else on his face that he can’t quite read.

“No, they wouldn’t,” Geralt says, and that is apparently the end of that, because he takes a long swig of his ale and then starts grumbling about the contract he’s taken on in the town; something about a missing brother, and two years before the younger sister had gone missing as well, except the parents hadn’t seen fit to _tell him_ that their daughter had gone missing—it seemed for all the world that they had apparently forgotten she had existed.

It’s an intriguing puzzle, and Jaskier relaxes into the witcher’s company as they spend the evening debating what sort of monster would make one’s family forget their own relative once it took them.

He imagined it might be awkward when it came to bedding down for the night, what with where matters stood between them, and he felt nerves rising uncomfortably in his stomach as a yawning barmaid wiped their table clean and Geralt finished the last dregs of his ale.

“Sleep well, Jaskier,” was all Geralt bid him, and if there was a glimmer of some other emotion on his face it was gone too quickly for Jaskier to parse, and then they went their separate ways to their rooms.

And that was how it would be for the next few weeks. Jaskier decided to travel once more with Geralt—or rather, this time, it seemed that neither one of them decided it. It just happened that when they parted ways the next morning they found one another again in the same tavern that night, the next town over, and again they drank together and tried to puzzle out Geralt’s monster.

When eventually he found it, he found the missing sister as its wife and the missing brother as having remembered her still, those two years, and when eventually the cruelty of their parents drove him out he went to find his sister and her monster-wife and begged to stay with them for a spell until he could get back on his feet.

Geralt swore to protect their secret, and they give him a ring and a necklace from their possessions to bring to their parents so he might tell them they were dead. The monster gave him a fang she had lost in a deer some years before, her silver eyes twinkling and her smile bright (the fang had, it seemed, grown back) as she held her wife’s hand and bid him farewell.

It was one of the nicer stories Jaskier collected of his time with Geralt: the monster turns out to be simply misunderstood and nobody ends up eaten; he spends the next few days walking beside Roach spinning it into a raunchy ballad that, for the more discerning and less drunk of the crowd, is also an epic romance, depending on where you put the emphasis.

He winds up inducing even Geralt to chuckling at a few of his rhymes, and that is when he realises where he is: camped beneath a litany of stars, firelight illuminating Geralt’s golden eyes and Roach’s reddish hide; the trees looming large and imperial about them. He has slipped into being the witcher’s companion once more, without either of them realising it.

~~~

Of course, their peace is not to last.

It happens, of course, when they go to book rooms in an inn, and are told that there is only one bed left in the whole of the establishment.

“How the fuck is there only one bed left?” Geralt growls at the innkeeper, who looks largely unimpressed; perhaps it is Jaskier’s presence by his side, with his bright silks and cheerful expression.

“The festival? The Festival of the Graces? It’s been going on all week?” she tells them both, looking from one to the other as though they are both equally responsible when obviously the blame can entirely be laid at Geralt’s feet.

“Hmm,” is Geralt’s response, and Jaskier flashes her his most charming smile as he picks up the room key to make up for his companion’s bad grace.

“Come now, Geralt, we’ve shared a bed before, it won’t be so bad, will it?” he cajoles the witcher.

Said witcher turns and fixes him with the hungriest expression Jaskier has ever seen on him.

“If we share a bed, bard, I won’t be able to keep my hands off you,” he growls out, and Jaskier’s mouth is suddenly very dry and he feels queerly hot and cold all over. This is it, then.

“So don’t,” he means to say, but instead it comes out as a rather ineffective whisper.

Geralt doesn’t seem to mind. He _pounces_ , slamming Jaskier against the wall and eliciting a mewl from him that he hopes to the gods nobody else heard. The witcher pushes his face against Jaskier’s neck and inhales, breathing deeply, before wrapping his lips around the juncture of his neck and biting.

Jaskier yelps, and his cock is suddenly at full-mast, straining against his breeches. He gasps again when Geralt shoves his hips forward and then they are grinding against the wall of the corridor, where anybody might walk past, and Jaskier’s neck is a bruised and marked mess—

And then they both hear footsteps and they spring apart, but it is only somebody walking in the kitchens below. Wordlessly they hurry—well, Jaskier hurries; Geralt _stalks_ —to their room, and once the door is shut behind them Geralt is upon him again, licking over the bruising marks he’d made earlier and cupping Jaskier hard.

“Want—want you,” he managed to whine into Geralt’s hair, and the witcher rumbles in response.

“Come on, then,” is the growled response, and the two of them take a scant few minutes to wrestle out of their clothes and onto the bed.

Where they stop, panting hard, and simply look at one another.

Then Geralt does something he has never done before.

He _slows down_.

He shifts onto his side so that he is no longer looming above Jaskier, and cups a hand against his face, before leaning in and kissing him—almost _sweetly_ , were it not so utterly filthy. Still, it is slow and horribly arousing, and Jaskier slides his tongue against Geralt’s with a whimper.

That hand slides its way down Jaskier’s neck, down his chest, down his stomach, where it rests so tantalisingly close to where Jaskier _really_ wants it to be that he bucks his hips up, whining into Geralt’s mouth.

The witcher breaks free of the kiss, which is exactly the _last_ thing Jaskier wants him to do, and then slides down Jaskier’s body, pressed kisses as he goes; to his shoulder, to his sternum, to his hips.

He reaches Jaskier’s cock and takes it into his mouth without preamble, and Jaskier thrusts into his mouth at the sudden onslaught without quite thinking—but Geralt doesn’t gag, nor does he back away; he simply swallows him down and takes it.

Then he is looking up at Jaskier, and there is something in his eyes that says he _needs_ this, just as much as Jaskier does, and so he thrusts again, very carefully, keeping an eye on Geralt’s face and ready to stop as soon as he needs to.

He doesn’t need to; Geralt closes his eyes in—Jaskier doesn’t like to think why he does it, because he has trodden that road before and it resulted in awful heartbreak, so instead he chases the stimulation.

It is—Jaskier has loved words, has loved literature and language, for as long as he can remember, and yet he finds himself with none to describe what fucking Geralt’s mouth is like, here and now.

The witcher is skilled, yes, but there is something else threading into the heady scents of sex and sweat that lay thickly on the air. There is a knowledge, somehow, that this is more than just a fuck—this is an understanding between the two of them, and Jaskier sees it in Geralt’s eyes. Sees an acceptance.

He sees something else, too—something a little like regret, he doesn’t think to himself—but it is fleeting enough that he pretends he doesn’t see it. Just for now.

It is hot, and slick, and Jaskier was never going to last long, and Geralt swallows all of him down when he comes, his hips lifting off the bed and his hand coming down to clutch at Geralt’s hair and hold him to his cock.

After, he tries to apologise, but the witcher hushes his words with a kiss and simply guides his hand down to his own erection, and they bring him off together.

They lay together, afterwards, and Geralt does not push him away.

~~~

The next morning, Jaskier can tell that Geralt regrets some part of what they did last night, so he does not mention any of it and the tension eases over the next few days of travelling.

The regret does not sting quite so much as it would have, before, and Jaskier thinks that the years apart have been good for them. For him, especially.

Their travels take them to the mountains in King Niedamir’s territories, and Jaskier finally pins Geralt to a wall by Roach’s stall in the stables and inn that they have found and kisses him hotly, filthily.

Geralt begins to complain, saying—something, that is quickly cut off when Jaskier falls to his knees to return the favour Geralt had given him some few nights ago.

It is as before, when they tried this in the hopes they might catch Geralt some sleep. The lewd, wet smack of his lips about Geralt’s member; the awful squishy feeling of kneeling in the muck, with Geralt’s cock down his throat and Geralt’s hands wound in his hair, and he closes his eyes and relaxes his throat and makes sure to swallow him down further—as far as he can.

Geralt’s bitten-off curses and clenching hands as he tried not to hurt the bard by pulling too painfully are intoxicating; Jaskier swirls his tongue and reaches up to cup Geralt’s balls, lightly tugging as he remembers what the witcher likes, looking up at him under his lashes just as the witcher looks down and his face is—

It is the single most beautiful thing Jaskier has ever seen in his _entire_ life, and he finds himself hitching his hips against his breeches and coming, hard, at the sight of it.

This time when he leans his head against Geralt’s hip, neither of them draw away immediately. Jaskier revels in this intimacy. It is what he has wanted, for so long; what he has nearly gotten now on a number of occasions before Geralt slipped through his fingers and away; what he has had in his dreams for years.

They kiss almost sweetly when he gets back on his feet, and for a moment Jaskier can almost believe that he’ll have this forever, that this look on Geralt’s face won’t be gone the next time he decides Jaskier is more trouble than he’s worth, or that this intimacy is too much a distraction.

For now, though, he can enjoy it.

Until, of course, while Borch is talking to them, Yennefer of Vengerberg walks into the inn, and Geralt agrees immediately to this dragon-slaying venture.

~~~

Yennefer and Eyck of Denesle have fucked at least _six times_ since the teams set off up the mountain side, which means Geralt has hauled Jaskier off for a good shag at least twice as many times, and he’s not sure his poor cock can keep up. He’ll be sleeping for the next week, he knows that much.

Not that he minds, per se. Geralt is very, very attractive when he comes to Jaskier, face flushed and eyes flashing, all brooding and commanding and almost overpowering, and Jaskier happily turns over or falls to his knees or is pushed up against the wall each time.

And it isn’t like Geralt is going too far, either. When, on the second night of this whole nightmarish escapade, he reached for Jaskier for the third time in an hour and the bard tells him, very grumpily and under no uncertain terms, to _fuck off_ , the witcher does so with no small amount of remorse and then looks like a kicked puppy for the rest of the night whenever Jaskier winces.

Jaskier just wishes all of this weren’t in some sort of pseudo-revenge against the crazy witch; that Geralt wanted him for _him_ , rather than to chase away purple eyes and a long fall of raven hair. It’s frustrating and upsetting and Jaskier tries to lose himself in the sex every time rather than think about it for too long.

“Alright, bard?” Eyck asks him one morning, as Jaskier emits a muffled groan upon sitting down for the morning gruel.

“Nghk.” Nobody ever said Jaskier wasn’t as erudite as they came.

“Sore?” Yennefer’s smug tone grated at him as she took a seat _entirely_ too close to him, and he shot her a venomous glare that faltered quickly under her gaze. She was masking it for the benefit of others, but he’d known her long enough that—she almost looked _worried_ for him. As though she knew what was going on.

As if she was _pitying_ him.

He drew himself up. “I’m just fine, actually. Think I pulled a hamstring yesterday, although Geralt says I wouldn’t be walking if I had, although he’s unusually grumpy lately and I don’t think he’d even notice if I couldn’t walk because, let’s be real, the whole fiasco with the hirikka was—” and she’s stopped listening, rolling her dangerously enrapturing eyes and turning to speak sweetly to her knight, leaving him be.

If only it didn’t feel like such a hollow victory.

~~~

He is genuinely remorseful when they find Eyck dead. Not because he particularly liked the man, and he doesn’t think Yennefer did either, really, but because nobody deserved to die like that. A knight was supposed to die in battle, not with their throat slit and their pants around their ankles.

A pall is cast over the group for the rest of the day, and Jaskier does not expect Geralt to want a fuck when they bed down for the night—but Geralt doesn’t come to him at _all_ , and Jaskier hopes he isn’t out causing trouble.

Of course, when he wakes the next morning and finds Geralt leaving Yennefer’s tent with a lovely smile across his lovely-face and shooting her doe-eyes across the breakfast fire, Jaskier finds himself wishing that Geralt had gone out and murdered an entire village rather than doing what he had evidently been doing last night, and with whom.

~~~

Jaskier finds Geralt after Borch died and attempts to console him.

“Look, why don’t we leave tomorrow?” he suggests, without much hope. “That is, if you’ll give me another chance to prove myself a worth travel companion.”

“Hm.” Well… it isn’t an outright _no_ , so he presses on.

“We could head to the coast. Get away for a while.” He pauses, and looks over the mountain range that spreads before them both. He really sees the most lovely things when he travels with the witcher. “Sounds like something Borch would say, doesn’t it?” he huffs a laugh to himself. “’Life is too short. Do what pleases you, while you can’”. His voice has grown soft by the time he finishes, and he sneaks a look at his companion.

“Composing your next song?” Geralt asks him, and that is… something, at least. He finds himself suddenly horribly melancholic, that this witcher’s heart will never belong to him.

“No, I’m just, uh… just trying to work out what pleases me.”

He very carefully does not look at Geralt as he says so, and he knows that Geralt does not look at him.

And maybe it is time. To let go of Geralt, properly, and find a path for himself. To find what pleases him.

Maybe there’s somebody out there more willing to put up with him, just waiting for him to come along and serenade them. It would make a lovely song.

 _But they wouldn’t be Geralt_ , a treacherous part of his mind reminds him, and he fits quietly beside his love, contemplating.

~~~

When it is all over, Geralt is…

Something has changed, irrevocably, in the witcher, and Jaskier doesn’t know what he can do to help. Doesn’t know how he can fix it, help him heal. _If_ he can be healed.

He aims for levity.

“Phew! What a day! I imagine you’re probably—

“Damn it, Jaskier!” Yeah, seems he misjudged that one. Jaskier’s heart squeezes horribly at Geralt’s furious expression. His love is hurting, and there doesn’t seem to be much he can do about it.

Geralt isn’t done. He whirls upon Jaskier, spitting mad, and roars, “why is it whenever I find myself in a pile of shit these days, it’s _you_ , shovelling it!”

Jaskier would have done anything, anything in the world, to not have had to hear that. “Well that’s not fair,” he says quietly, but Geralt continues.

“The Child Surprise, the djinn, all of it!” Jaskier isn’t sure the Child Surprise can technically be blamed on him, and he wasn’t even the one _looking_ for a djinn, though he will admit some responsibility for the mess that came after. He wants to argue, wants to fight back—but his friend is angry and hurting from some wound deep inside, and he’s afraid that if he pushes too hard he’ll do some irrevocable damage.

“If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands.” Geralt always did know how to go straight for the throat. Jaskier finds himself briefly wishing that he had hurt the witcher before Geralt could hurt him, but he dismisses the thought almost immediately. He would lay down his _life_ for the witcher, there is no question that he would let Geralt run the sword through himself if it meant he might be well again.

“Right, uh… right then. I’ll go get the rest of the story from the others,” he tells the witcher, though Geralt has turned away.

“See you around, Geralt,” he finishes, and while Geralt has very likely mentally washed his hands of the bard, Jaskier is mentally laying is heart at Geralt’s feet, because he knows that this is it, for him. He will never love another like this.

He turns and leaves Geralt for the last time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Kudos and comments are much appreciated. i DO have an idea for a kiss and make up sequel but idk if i wanna write it lol. hope u enjoyed
> 
> EDIT: all ur lovely comments broke me and im now writing a sequel: when it ends. subscribe to the series for a notification for when it comes out!
> 
> Hit me up on tumblr at redkelpie!


End file.
